Sometimes your memories and the places they took place in get ingrained into your psyche in a way that makes them impossible to separate. That bar that you only ever went to with someone who you no-longer have in your life in the same way, or that spot in a park where you first made out... Places with memories that were once happy become impossible to visit without being struck by a sense of loss.
It’s this experience that Alexina’s ferocious new single, London, addresses. “How can I stay in London, if I don’t have you?”, she cries. The quiet-loud-quiet approach turns a song of heartbreak into the kind of song that captures the feeling of dancing on the grave of the relationship that almost took you down. It reminds me of the kind of wonderfully sad dance pop records Robyn has been making for years.
Getting out of London becomes a defence mechanism, and it is one the video Takes to an extreme, Alexina driving around London as she douses the places that evoke the most painful memories in petrol. Sometimes the only thing you can do in order to stop the hurt is burn it all down. You can’t help but feel the heartbreak that got Alexina to this place...